How to Create and use a Pull-Together List

I’m pretty sure it was Darren Rowse that coined the term “Sneeze page” to describe what I call “Pull together lists.” And they solve two problems that are common to all blogs:

People arriving at your blog from a search want more!

Imagine someone arriving at this blog having searched for some Twitter help. She’s read whichever post I managed to get well ranked in Google, but I haven’t quite answered her questions. So she decides to use my on-site search facility. Not good – over 100 posts come up on that search. The problem here is that Twitter comes up in my posts a lot!

Great posts you wrote in the distant past aren’t getting the traffic they deserve

You probably wrote some of your best stuff in the early days of your blog. But they’re buried in your archives and are hard to find. They aren’t working for you!

The Solution

The solution is the Pull together list, or sneeze page. A list that “pulls together” some of your best posts on a given topic. Here’s my pull together post on Twitter. And I also have one on Time Management. These work beautifully on the blog to solve the two problems above.

I add them to the related posts on the subject, and I have them placed in the sidebar, so people coming to the site for the first time can quickly get more information on the subject that they came to find out about:

But there’s more you can do!

The ideas above solve some instant problems, but there is much more you can do with your new pull together list.

1/ Use it as an autoresponder. Set up an automatic email to go to your subscribers a month or two after they become a part of your community. Tell them it’s a useful list to bring together some of your best posts on the subject, and designed to save them time delving into your archives. This will bring traffic, spread nicely over time, to your site and more importantly to some of your best work. Do these regularly.

2/ Use it on forums. When you see a question in a forum, answer it, but tell them they can get more on the subject – “…..this link will take you to a list of posts I put together on this.”

3/ Use it in guest posts. Finish your guest post on the subject with: “If you’d like to read more of my thoughts on this, here’s a link to a list of posts I have written on the subject:” It’s so much more useful to the reader than a simple link to your front page.

4/ Use it to help speed up email communication. I get asked questions via email all the time, and it saves me repeating myself when I’m able to say “Have a look at the posts on this list, they’ll answer your question and give you loads more information.

Are you using pull together lists yet?